Hi there,
I am almost out of flight numbers and would hate to create a subsidiary just to continue expanding my enterprise.
Can extending the limit for flight numbers beyond 9999 be looked into/discussed?
I understand that this probably is a technical limitation right now, but please do look into the possibilities.
Kind regards,
Koen
Hi Koen,
I have been asking this question myself whether it would be possible to expand flight numbers, maybe to a 5-digit instead of 4 digits.
In real life flight numbers have maximum 4 digits, so this may be the reason what that is the limit in AS as well.
Whether it would be technically possible to expand to 5 (or more) flight numbers, can only be answered by Martin.
Even the real-world airlines are coming up against the 4-digit limitation, which I thought was an ICAO restriction, but I don’t know enough about aviation regulations to know if such a restriction exists, or if it’s a limitation of reservation systems that were designed back in the 1970’s.
One of the ways that the real airlines can get around the issue is by scheduling a round trip as a via flight. (i.e. Flight 001 XXX-YYY-XXX) This isn’t available to us in-game though, as via flights cannot start and end at the same airport. You can use the same flight number for StationA-hub-StationB though, but it may get confusing with a whole lot of via flights.
Has been asked several times, you should find the statements of the developers (=No) in the forum by using the search enginge.
Pardon me MacChaos, I did search before and just did again. Probably using the wrong search terms or have to go too far back in history.
If you could link me that would be great. Thanks!
Unless IATA changes the official format to anything else but a 4-digit number, the format in AS will remain untouched. If you run out of free numbers, you can always create a subsidiary.
If you run out of free numbers, you can always create a subsidiary.
And this subsidiary needs to have all the interline requests sent to numerous airlines, starts with "zero image" and is yet another airline which is basically not needed.
The limitation of flight numbers with the explanation "IATA" is funny....this is a game and technically it´s no problem.
The real reason is: The really BIG airlines should have a natural barrier to limit further growth. ;)
If image and interlining agreements are limiting an airline in founding a subsidiary after running out of flight numbers, there is something going seriously wrong. And as long as the maintenance cost model is the way as it is today, there are good other reasons to have a second airline ...
For some real airlines flight number management is an issue, so why should that be no issue within AS? Besides, with the new scheduling options it is way easier to assign less flight numbers to a flight plan.
What about the possibility of alphanumeric flight numbers? XXX123A. Real world airlines use this for their computer and reservation systems occasionally. And I would argue we simulate more of that side of the business than representing what is legally filed to the flight plan. After all numbers within 1-9999 are used move to 1A-999A and so on.
Or allow any “round trips” (consecutive flights from A-B-A on the same airframe) to use the same number for both legs.